Our Beliefs – Where Do They Come From?

By Raymond Barranco, MSU Sociology Professor

Do you ever wonder why we do things the way we do? Or why we believe what we believe? Probably – but only when a child is asking, "Why?" Over and over again. We all tend to end that conversation the same way: "Because."

Take something as simple as eye contact while talking with someone. Most Americans would say good eye contact means you are confident and respectful. Bad eye contact suggests dishonesty, disrespect, or disinterest. But such beliefs aren't necessarily "natural." In the animal kingdom, direct eye contact is seen as threatening – a personal challenge. In many East Asian cultures, prolonged eye contact is considered disrespectful and overly aggressive. In America, we expect children to look at adults when they speak to them; in other cultures, doing so is the height of disrespect.

Why the difference? Over time, cultures develop different expectations about what is respectful, appropriate, and normal. Children absorb those expectations from parents, teachers, friends, and the broader community until they stop feeling like rules at all. They simply feel like the way things are.

The same is true for countless other parts of life – how close we stand when we talk, what we eat, how we worship, what we teach our children is right and wrong. Most of these practices feel natural to the people who grow up with them. Yet many would seem strange to someone raised elsewhere.

Why does this matter? Because when we see someone doing something we find wrong, disrespectful, lazy, or any other negative label, we assume they share our beliefs and upbringing – and simply chose poorly. That assumption leads us to conclude something is wrong with the other person, when in reality they are often just doing what they were taught was correct.

Many of us take for granted that the way we were raised – what we were taught is true and untrue, right and wrong – is simply natural and correct. What we don't always realize is that our view of the world often depends heavily on when and where we happened to be born. Try answering this: what would your religious beliefs be if you'd been born in rural Mississippi? Utah? India? Iran? Each answer is probably different – yet each person would feel just as certain that their beliefs were the natural, obvious ones.

Recognizing this does not mean all beliefs are equally true or all behaviors equally acceptable. Some beliefs cause real harm, and some practices deserve real criticism. What it means is that understanding why someone believes what they do has to come before any honest conversation about whether they should believe something different. Skip that step, and persuasion becomes nothing more than two people talking past each other, each convinced the other is simply being stubborn or irrational.

These differences also explain why it's so hard for any of us to change our minds. How we were raised and what we believe become part of who we are. Abandoning those things can feel less like updating an opinion and more like betraying our family, our past, or ourselves.

Given all of this, patience matters – especially on heated topics. Other people hold their core beliefs just as strongly as we hold ours, and those beliefs took a lifetime to form. They won't dissolve under pressure, and getting louder, angrier, or more frustrated has never once changed anyone's mind.

If we want to persuade people, we may need to spend less time winning arguments and more time understanding why people believe what they do. The next time someone's behavior strikes you as bizarre or wrong, ask yourself a simple question first: in their shoes, raised exactly as they were raised, would I see it any differently?

Until we're willing to ask that, the eye contact we make – or fail to make – with each other will keep being misread as something it never was.